It’s not fossil fuels causing global warming, it’s man-made adjustments. Stop the adjustments! In South America, there are hardly any rural land thermometers. GISS tells us the area is warming (see the map below). Paul Homewood looked at the raw data. There are only three rural stations currently operating in the area, Puerto Casado, Mariscal, and San Juan, and they all show a raw trend that falls. As in so many other situations, after adjustments, all three show a rising trend. The changes are breathtaking. In Mariscal raw temperatures of 25.5C turned out to be “really” 22.5C. (Those 1950...

Rising Turkish Menace: U.S. and NATO Ally Wants Islamic Advance in Latin America By Julio Severo The president of Turkey has re-written history by claiming Muslim explorers, not Christopher Columbus, discovered America. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, chief of America’s NATO ally, said November 15 that Islamic sailors found the New World in 1178. He said, “Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus.” Turkey is the only Islamic nation in the NATO. His theory — which is supported only by Islamic historians — came to light in a televised speech during an Istanbul summit of...

Scandal has rocked the Vatican for the second time in a week. On Thursday (September 25), officials confirmed Pope Francis had sacked Bishop Livieres, head of the Paraguayan diocese of Ciudad del Este. Livieres is suspected of protecting a priest believed to have sexually abused young people. His dismissal followed the arrest two days earlier of former archbishop Josef Wesolowski, who is accused of paying for sex with children during his time as papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. Pope Francis, has vowed to take a zero-tolerance policy on clerics who abuse minors. The pontiff approved Wesolowski’s arrest and earlier...

(Asuncion / Rome) Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, dismissed yesterday from his office by Pope Francis, sees himself as a victim of an intrigue, which he describes as "ideological persecution." In an open letter to the Prefect of the Roman Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the bishop wrote that Pope Francis will have to answer for his decision before God. At the same time Bishop Livieres announced that he has as yet no knowledge of the contents of the investigation report of the Papal Visitor, Cardinal Santos Abril. As a "son of the Church,"...

An Air Force captain discovered he was banned from Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, due to pending charges against him from a previous encounter with a cop who had tried to arrest him for entering his own home. The charges — resisting arrest and obstructing an officer — have infuriated Captain Nicolas Aquino, a first-generation immigrant whose parents came to the United States from Paraguay as political exiles. Last December, an officer paid a visit to Aquino’s Monterey residence. Apparently, a neighbor had seen a man entering Aquino’s home, and reported a possible burglary to the authorities. The...

President Obama and his senior cabinet officials are mounting a big push to bolster foreign direct investment in the US – amid evidence that America is falling behind other countries in the race for global capital. The evidence? How about the USA being near the bottom in the Americas with Chile leading and the USA down at the bottom with Mexico, El Salvador and Venezuela. Even Paraguay has a higher FDI as a percentage of GDP! fdiamericas “On the heels of the manufactured crises in Washington, it’s time for folks to come together and focus on doing everything we can...

"IRAN SPY NETWORK 30,000 STRONG Pentagon report: Iranian intelligence linked to spying, terror attacks" SNIPPET: "Iran’s intelligence service includes 30,000 people who are engaged in covert and clandestine activities that range from spying to stealing technology to terrorist bombings and assassination, according to a Pentagon report." SNIPPET: "“MOIS provides financial, material, technological, or other support services to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. Executive Order 13224,” the report said. The spy service operates in all areas where Iran has interests, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Central Asia, Africa, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, France,...

SNIPPET: "An Argentine prosecutor has accused Iran of trying to infiltrate countries in Latin America to sponsor and carry out "terrorist activities". Alberto Nisman said Iran was attempting to set up intelligence-gathering stations in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and other countries in the region. Mr Nisman is investigating a bomb attack that killed 85 people in a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1994." SNIPPET: ""I legally accuse Iran of infiltrating several South American countries to install intelligence stations - in other words espionage bases - destined to commit, encourage and sponsor terror attacks like the one that took place against...

Britain has invaded all but 22 countries in the world in its long and colourful history, new research has found. Every schoolboy used to know that at the height of the empire, almost a quarter of the atlas was coloured pink, showing the extent of British rule. But that oft recited fact dramatically understates the remarkable global reach achieved by this country. A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe. The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only...

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. Â“The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

Paraguay's ousted President Fernando Lugo has broken cover to accuse the country's Congress of carrying out a "parliamentary coup d'etat" to force him from power. In his first public appearance since his impeachment on Friday over a deadly land dispute earlier this month, Mr Lugo, 61, attacked Congress for its decision but said he would accept it in the name of peace. "Lugo has not been dismissed; democracy has been dismissed. They have not respected the popular will," he said at a street protest attended by about 500 people in the capital Asuncion. He called his impeachment "unjust" and called...

It’s hard to uphold a reputation as a devoutly religious terrorist group if you make millions selling cocaine. Just ask Hezbollah. Last month, the US government filed suit against a number of American and Lebanese businesses that allegedly helped bankroll the Lebanese terrorist group. The civil indictment in Manhattan blew the lid off a vast criminal network that included money-laundering, cocaine deals and more — including 30 US car dealerships that helped the group launder cash. As one investigator quipped, Hezbollah is the “Gambinos on steroids.” The indictment charges Hezbollah kingpin Ayman Joumaa with smuggling more than 100 tons of...

Bishop Claudio Silvero says the devices are "accursed and tools of sin".... [SNIP] ....mobile phones ease access to pornography and aid in "inappropriate relations." He says about 40 percent of Christian families suffer damage "because of the bad use of cellular phones and the Internet." His campaign is not shared by many in the church. Cell phones are common among Vatican officials and the church has produced some of its own applications for them.

Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler said that the Paraguay shower fall that knocked his teeth out and cut his face was caused by food poisoning not a drug relapse, in a TV interview Thursday. The veteran rocker, who has spoken openly about his drug and alcohol problems in the past, told NBC's "Today" show that he blacked out in an Asuncion hotel shower because he was suffering "Montezuma's revenge" not because he had fallen off the wagon. "Quite frankly I just passed out,"

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Organizers say an Aerosmith concert in Paraguay will be postponed one day after singer Steven Tyler fell in his hotel bathroom, hitting his face and breaking two teeth. Garzia Group spokesman Marcelo Antunez is calling the accident "minor" and...said the 63-year-old singer was "once again in the Bourbon hotel" recovering for the concert.

NEW YORK (AFP) – A dual US-Lebanese citizen has been extradited from Paraguay and charged with supporting Lebanon's Hezbollah militant force, US officials said Friday. Moussa Ali Hamdan, 38, appeared in court in Philadelphia following his extradition and has been charged with providing "material support to Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization," the federal prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania said in a statement. Hamdan was arrested by Paraguayan authorities June 15 on suspicion of supporting terrorism and was subsequently handed over to US custody. He is accused in the United States on 28 counts including conspiring to supply Hezbollah with proceeds...

(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). “International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,” stated CRS in an April 30 report. As evidence that Hezbollah and...

SNIPPET: "President Chávez also announced during the visit that Venezuela is working on a preliminary plan for the construction of a “nuclear village” in Venezuela with Iranian assistance so that “the Venezuelan people can count in the future on this marvelous resource for peaceful purposes.” The transfer of Iranian nuclear technology from Iran would be a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions - 1737 (2006), 1747 ( 2007), and 1803 (2008) - that imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear technology transfers. In late September 2009, comments by Venezuelan officials offered conflicting information about Iran’s support for Venezuela’s search for uranium deposits....

SNIPPET: "In recent years, U.S. concerns have increased over activities of Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim Palestinian group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the tri-border area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, which has a large Muslim population. The TBA has long been used for arms and drug trafficking, contraband smuggling, document and currency fraud, money laundering, and the manufacture and movement of pirated goods." SNIPPET: "This article is an edited portion of a longer January 25, 2010 CRS report, Latin America: Terrorism Issues (PDF) prepared by Mark P. Sullivan, Specialist in Latin American Affairs for the Congressional Research Service...

"Now Arizona has more than one war in our backyards MY OPINION: Hezbollah using drug routes" By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business Published on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 SNIPPET: "For years, I have been warning that the Mexican drug war will sweep over Southern Arizona if we don’t close the border. Well now the war is here. But today, I am writing to warn you of another war. It is using the drug routes but it isn’t connected to the cartels. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group, is on its way to involving Tubac, Tucson, Phoenix and other parts of Arizona...

SNIPPET - quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Concepcion (Paraguay) Security Incidents CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Americas - Paraguay 23 Apr 2010 U.S. Embassy Asuncion released the following Warden Message on April 23: This Warden Message alerts U.S. citizens residing or traveling in Paraguay to recent security incidents in the Department of Concepcion. On April 21, 2010, four people were murdered in rural Concepcion. The Government of Paraguay suspects the involvement of the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP), a nascent insurgent group responsible for a number of high profile kidnappings, bombings and other...

Note: The following text SNIPPET is a quote: SEVEN CHARGED FOR ILLEGAL EXPORT OF ELECTRONICS TO U.S. DESIGNATED TERRORIST ENTITY IN PARAGUAY February 19, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jeffrey H. Sloman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Anthony V. Mangione, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Investigations, John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, Harold Woodward, Director of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Michael Johnson, Special Agent in Charge, Department of Commerce (DOC), Adam J. Szubin, Director, Department of the...

Paraguay named an undocumented U.S. immigrant to run its consulate in New York, discovering his illegal status only when the man returned home to get his diplomatic papers and was denied a U.S. visa. Paraguay's foreign ministry acknowledged Wednesday that it was a mistake to name Augusto Noguera as the consulate's "first official," but said President Fernando Lugo annulled the decision as soon as he was informed of the U.S. Embassy's visa denial. Vice Foreign Minister Manuel Maria Caceres told The Associated Press that the decision to name Noguera as a diplomat on Sept. 21 was made in good faith...

RIO DE JANEIRO — A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of Latin America's biggest nation for more than two hours late Tuesday, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. Paraguay was also affected when the Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. The cause of the failure had not been determined, but Lobao said...

Here is a video report on a premature baby boy weighing just over one pound (500 grams) in Paraguay who was pronounced dead at a hospital, but who "woke up" as he was taken from a box to be placed in preparation for his own wake! When the baby was removed from the box, he began to cry and move his arms and legs. The family both overjoyed and angry. Officials are investigating to see how this could happen. Doctors pronounced the boy dead and signed his death certificate as well. Wouldn't that be some king of a surprise! ....

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's federal police have arrested a high-ranking al Qaeda operative in Sao Paulo and are keeping him under tight security, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday. The suspect is allegedly a chief of international communications for al Qaeda, according to the report in Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's largest daily newspaper. The report did not give the suspect's name or say when he was taken into custody, nor did it provide a source for the information. The arrest was surrounded by secrecy with the federal police disguising it as part of an investigation into neo-Nazi groups in...

Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran. The study was conducted at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), a non-governmental organization dedicated to Israeli intelligence and terrorism issues. According to the study, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using anti-Western Hugo Chavez as a springboard into several Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, and...

Spanish experts have found in Paraguay the oldest evidence of the presence of man dating back more than 5,000 years. The find was made during the course of an investigation being conducted into the heritage of the Pai Tavytera Indians. The remnants of ancient man's presence - which were not specified - were found in a hill known as Jasuka Venda by a team from the Altamira Museum, which is responsible for looking after the same-named cave containing the famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings. The museum will present details of the Paraguay find at the International Congress on Cave Art...

The reason marijuana is so abundant in Paraguay is simple, authorities there say: economics. "Our reality is that we have large crops, large parcels of crops," said Cesar Aquino, the head of Paraguay's antidrug agency. "They don't dedicate themselves to cultivating marijuana because they are narcotraffickers, but because of economic necessity. Compared to the price of a traditional crop, they can make 500 percent more with this." The U.N. report says marijuana cultivation remains concentrated in North America, where the largest producers are Mexico and the United States. Mexico produced 7,400 metric tons, while the United States cultivated 4,700 metric...

President-elect Fernando Lugo Asunción, Jul 30, 2008 / 01:52 pm (CNA).- The Holy See has confirmed through the Apostolic Nunciature in Paraguay the loss of the clerical state of former bishop and President-elect Fernando Lugo.In a statement released today and signed by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, the decree granting a dispensation from the clerical state for Lugo was made public. “His Excellency the Most Reverend Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez, S.V.D., Bishop emeritus of San Pedro, requested dispensation from the clerical sate on December 18, 2006, in order to run in the...

Shortly after his historic victory in Paraguay's mid-April elections, President-elect Fernando Lugo -- the retired bishop suspended from ministry after he declaring his run for office -- received a courtesy call from the papal nuncio to the Latin American country, Archbishop Orlando Antonini. While the Paraguay church's initial reaction to Lugo's expected defeat of its long-reigning Colorado party was little more than acknowledgment that it happened, Antonini called on the president-elect bearing a gift from B16: not a decree of excommunication, but a pen adorned with the papal coat of arms. The prelate-politico was reported to be emotional as...

'A MAN of God and an enemy of the Great Satan": That's how Iran's official media described Fernando Lugo - the Paraguayan ex-priest who just won his country's presidency in a hotly contested election. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - among the first foreign leaders to congratulate Lugo on his win - hopes that Paraguay will now become another link in what he calls "the counter lasso" - the chain of anti-US regimes he's supporting with the help of his "brother," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ahmadinejad's analysis is simple: America is trying to throw a lasso around Iran with the help...

POST ONE: Pope Benedict XVI is believed to be mulling over the possibility of expelling a bishop, Fernando Lugo, from the clerical state. That would certainly be a first under the 1983 Code (the Jacques Gaillot case in 1995 was not a precedent; Gaillot was removed from office, but not from the clerical state), and I'm pretty sure it never happened under the 1917 Code. Lugo, though suspended and removed from ecclesiastical office, remains a cleric, but his election under a reformist banner to Paraguay's presidency upped the ante. Clergy are forbidden to assume civil governing offices (see 1983...

Pope Benedict XVI is to decide whether to defrock Fernando Lugo, a Roman Catholic Bishop, following his election as President of Paraguay, Vatican sources said today. Mr Lugo, 56, a former Divine Word missionary and Bishop, was elected President of Paraguay with 41 per cent of the vote with a platform of land reform and help for the poor. His election ended over 60 years of rule by the Colorado Party, whose candidate Blanca Ovelar received 31 per cent of the vote. Mr Lugo was ordained in 1977, and served as a missionary in Ecuador for five years. In 1992...

ASUNCION, Paraguay - The victory of the "bishop of the poor" in Paraguay's presidential election expands a wave of leftist leadership across Latin America and further isolates the few remaining conservative governments. Once Fernando Lugo is inaugurated on Aug. 15, the only right-leaning governments in Latin America will be Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico — and arguably Peru, where a left-leaning populist party has gradually edged to the right. "The triumph of comrade Fernando Lugo is ... yet another stone in the foundation of this new Latin America that is just, sovereign, independent — and why not, socialist," Ecuadorean President...

Julio Gonzalez Asunción, Mar 31, 2008 / 01:08 pm (CNA).- Four months ago Julio Gonzalez surprised all of Paraguay when he returned to the soccer field after having one of his arms amputated. Since returning, he says that he was able to overcome all of his obstacles because of his faith in God.In December of 2005, Gonzalez, a 24 year-old player on an Italian soccer team, was asked to play on the Paraguayan national team for the 2006 World Cup. However, while he was on his way to the airport in Venice to catch a flight back to Asuncion...

Always trying to be helpful to our Democrat friends, I have a solution for their dilemma that could keep their party from self immolation. There is one country in the world where dueling is still legal --- Paraguay. If Obama and Hillary want to settle their differences in this manner, I am quite certain the funds could be raised to make it happen. I would, of course, want to be the promoter of the event, THE PARAGUAY OPTION. SOURCE For all registered blood donors with an unsatisfied passion for dueling, Paraguay should be top of your list of places to...

Neil Bush, younger brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, called on Paraguay's president as the guest of a business federation founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. A presidential press office source, who spoke on condition of not being named, confirmed the younger Bush met President Nicanor Duarte on Thursday along with a delegation from the Universal Peace Federation, a group associated with Moon. Duarte himself had no statement on the meeting. Antonio Betancourt, a spokesman for the federation, said that Bush visited Duarte and later met with an opposition congressional leader, Sen. Miguel Abdon Saguier, and that both...

Eugene, a Belgian computer programmer, has retired to a cottage in southern Paraguay, and the pride of his golden years is his view. From his stone patio, he sees forested hills, the fringes of yerba mate plantations, and, in the distance, the crumbling ruins of a Jesuit settlement two centuries old. “Like a picture,” he says, and I nod to agree, even though my mind is not on the beautiful vista, but on the dark figure who once shared it. The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele cheated justice for decades by hiding out in South America, sometimes in these very hills....

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Paraguay asked international health authorities on Thursday to supply 600,000 doses of vaccine for yellow fever after the first cases were detected in the country in 34 years. Antonio Barrios, a public health official, said the government had 100,000 vaccine doses but wanted to bolster stocks as a "reserve measure" after five cases of yellow fever were detected this week in a central farming region. Barrios said the request was being made to the Pan American Health Organization. An expert on vaccination issues at the Washington-based offices was not immediately available for comment. Barrios said the five...

Homeland Security: Duncan Hunter got the number wrong but the problem right in Tuesday's GOP presidential debate. We need to worry about al-Qaida in Iraq but also about al-Qaida and Hezbollah in the Americas. The long-shot congressman from San Diego tried to make the point that border security isn't just about people coming into this country looking for a better life, but also people possibly coming across looking to end our way of life as we know it. Hunter has stated that last year some 155,000 illegals were caught coming into this country classified as OTMs (other than Mexicans). In...

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.

The U.S. State Department has issued a warning to Americans against travel to parts of Paraguay because of an outbreak of dengue fever. A statement issued Tuesday said citizens may want to particularly avoid the area of Asuncion, Paraguay, where most of the nation's infections are concentrated. At least 18,000 people in Paraguay have been infected, and at least a dozen of those have died of the severe form of the disease, known as dengue hemorrhagic fever. Some experts say the number of cases is significantly higher than the official reports. Paraguayan officials have been accused of a responding inadequately...

Brazil says triple border area under constant vigilance http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/08/america/LA-GEN-Brazil-US-Triple-Border.php The Associated PressPublished: February 8, 2007 BRASILIA, Brazil: Brazil's top law enforcement official Thursday assured his American counterpart that Brazil is taking action to prevent terrorist groups from gaining a foothold in South America's so-called Triple Border. Measures to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering were among the top issues discussed by Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos and U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales in Brazil's capital. The Triple Border, a porous region where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina converge, is home to more than 20,000 Arabs — mostly Lebanese Muslims — as...

Dengue sparks Paraguay emergency Hospitals may not be able to cope if cases go on rising, doctors say Paraguay has declared a 60-day state of emergency to deal with an outbreak of dengue fever which has killed at least 10 people in the past two months. Officials say 14,654 people have been diagnosed with dengue. But doctors say the figure is 10 times higher, and are worried about a new more virulent variant of the disease. Brazil and Bolivia have also seen a rise in cases of dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes and is endemic in much of the...